


Tunnel Vision

by Im_The_Doctor (Bofur1)



Category: Transformers Generation One
Genre: Ambushes and Sneak Attacks, Anger, Angst, Assumptions, Confrontations, Construction Plans, Energon, Eventual Respect, Forced Bonding, Friends to Enemies, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Injury, Medical Procedures, Memory Magic, Revenge, Understanding, requited feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-17
Updated: 2015-03-17
Packaged: 2018-03-18 06:25:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3559433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bofur1/pseuds/Im_The_Doctor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After nine million years, a reprogramming and a critical betrayal, ex-Constructicon Hauler finds himself in the vengeful sights of Omega Supreme. Question: Is Constructicon loyalty stronger than Supreme hate?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tunnel Vision

Hauler screeched to a halt and transformed to bipedal mode, studying his surroundings with concerned blue optics. He must have taken a wrong turn somewhere, for this was definitely not the way to the _Ark_. He’d gotten lost at the worst of times—Prime was in a rare bad mood and wanted the energon Hauler was carrying as soon as possible.

 _This is embarrassing. I’m the energon scouter; I’ve traveled all over the world and now I can’t find my way home_. Shaking his helm free of that, Hauler tucked the canisters of energon under his arms and walked, emerging into a grassy clearing. Remembering the advice Hound often gave about admiring the scenery, Hauler vented slowly, sensing the different, earthy feeling.

“Earthy,” he repeated to himself with a small smile. That was more Hound’s attraction. He, however, could see a structure gathering and building before his optics. Its purpose he couldn’t quite tell yet, but it intrigued him. Setting down the energon, Hauler pulled his neon green arms behind his back, knit his fingers together and paced around the space, editing the construction from each angle.

“Four windows, halved into eight panels,” he muttered, rocking back on his heelstruts enthusiastically. “Two bronze staircases, one to the entrance and one on the upper level, leading to the roof, separated from the common area with a wall divider! Beautiful…”

“Road Hauler!”

Hauler whirled around, chills sliding through his plating to his very spark at hearing _that_ name called. The chill turned tight and hot with pain as he was suddenly backhanded head over heels. He flew, hit the ground hard and skidded, alert bubbles unnecessarily informing him that he was in agony. Groaning, Hauler forced himself onto shaky hands and knees, craning his helm as a gigantic shadow fell over him.

“Appearance: unexpected,” Omega Supreme rumbled coldly. “Purpose: unimportant. Vengeance: imminent!”

“Wait!” Hauler stumbled to his feet and lifted his hands pleadingly. “Omega Supreme, I’m not one of them!”

“Constructicon colors: present! Allegiance—”

“Autobots!” Hauler finished for him, gesturing frantically to the symbol on his chest. “I’m with the Autobots!”

Omega Supreme was not calmed by this; if anything, he looked even angrier. “Purpose: infiltration!”

Hauler’s optics flickered around for something he could use as a weapon. Finding a bargaining chip instead, he tried, “A Decepticon wouldn’t give this energon to you, would they? You can take it.”

“Energon: undesired. Desire: your spark extinguished!”

Hauler yelped, leaping out of the way of Omega’s claw arm smashing down. The ground trembled around the new fissure and Hauler barely recovered his balance. Primus, this was not how he had expected his day to turn out!

Laser fire skimmed the ground along Hauler’s feet, singeing him as he sprinted toward the energon, gathering it up. Even if the added weight slowed him down, his programming forbade him to lose the resource. “When have you ever seen a Constructicon alone?!” he shouted over his shoulder as he narrowly sidestepped Omega’s foot jerking at him. “If I were with my old team, I would call them, wouldn’t I? I know I can’t defeat you alone!” Even as he spoke he opened a channel to the _Ark_ , sending a distress signal through.

“Reasoning: flawed. Omega Supreme: ambushed in the past,” the large Bot snarled, swiping at him. Hauler bent backwards, almost in half, to dodge his hand, but it still grazed his helm. Such a glancing blow to Omega was devastating to a Bot of Hauler’s size. His processor spat red static in his vision, not even registering the impact of the ground.

An indeterminate amount of time later, Hauler heard a low dial tone coaxing him back to reality. Still his awareness meandered, registering only the sticky oozing of energon on his face, neck and chest. Had the canisters broken or was it his own? Neither outcome would be pleasant.

Semi-conscious alarms clanging in his audials, Hauler lay very still, praying that Omega would believe he’d already deactivated him. A wash of coolant told him that his self-repair codes were already at work, but Hauler didn’t know how long he’d been unconscious. A claw closing around his chest told him it probably wasn’t very long.

Forcing his optics online, Hauler met Omega’s hard, calculating gaze.

“If the Autobots find me dead,” he mumbled dazedly, “they’ll know it was you…”

“Omega Supreme: uncaring. Revenge: primary,” Omega snapped back, tightening his grip. Hauler’s vents contracted. He gasped and coughed on the energon which stuck in his throat—definitely his own.

“I—have a last request,” he choked out. “If… _When_ the Bots find me dead, explain yourself. Tell them why you did it. Tell Hound why I won’t be there to learn more about ants and the brilliant work they do. Tell Bluestreak why I can no longer be his confidant. Tell…Tell Huffer why the mech who saved his life through surgery a month ago wasn’t able to be saved. Tell Optimus why one of his best energon scouts never checked in from his last route. Tell Ratchet why whoever ends up in the med bay from energon loss doesn’t have a new stock waiting for him. Tell them whose fault it is that there isn’t more energon to help them win the war! Tell them why they’re going to _starve_!”

“Other energon scouts: present,” Omega Supreme reminded him dryly.

“None as good as me,” Hauler hissed. It was a lie, of course, but his pride was surfacing with his desperation. He _refused_ to be killed this way! Inexplicable, inescapable anger pumped through him as he kicked the air futilely. “Unlike _some_ Autobots, I protect my team well with what I do!” He regretted the words as soon as he said them, realizing that Omega would think he meant his Constructicon team. Before he could clarify, Omega’s grip became crushing and the screech of metal splitting inward was only overshadowed by Hauler’s piercing scream. It died out suddenly as he felt energon streaming into the new cracks in his chest—into his spark chamber.

—

Omega Supreme grasped what was happening as soon as Hauler’s voice cut out. The Constructicon’s helm fell forward, energon from his face pouring through the cracks into his armor. Despite himself and his need for revenge, Omega felt panic strike as Hauler arched suddenly, his arms and legs flailing almost seizure-like, scrambling against Omega’s hand.

The guardsmech had seen this before, much to his horror. On Cybertron there had once been a perilous error built into an entire city’s worth of Cybertronians. The chambers in their chests had given way without warning, letting energon pour into the cradles inside and drowning the unprotected sparks. Mechs, femmes, sparklings…all had fallen in a matter of minutes as the energon burned through the delicate life-forces. There hadn’t been a single resident of the planet who hadn’t been searching to the best of their ability for the solution. Who knew if such a traumatic, appalling death could happen to them?

In the end it had come down to a mech named Tonnage and his sparkmate Arial. When their sparkling, practically newsparked, had fallen toward the throes of death, the couple hadn’t had any idea what to do. In the anguish of losing her sparkling, Arial had laid her helm on their creation’s concaving chest and her sparkmate had gotten the idea. Tonnage had convinced her to take apart one of his optics, unravel one of the threadlike cables there and lower it into the spark chamber, drawing the pool of energon into himself. It had irreparably damaged his optic, but their sparkling had been saved and survived to this day. The process had been refined and the next generation built with a very specific cable in both optics that could perform the process without damage to their sight, but…could Omega do this for one of his bitter enemies?

Hauler had been trembling violently as he recounted the story, but now the quake was slowing to a twitch. He didn’t have much time, Omega realized. The energon must be dissolving the spark’s corona…He needed to make his decision _right now_.

No one deserved such a death. Besides, how would he get his revenge if he took cowardly advantage of such a horror? Kneeling, he arranged Hauler flat out on the ground and pulled up the deeply entrenched code to disassemble his optic bundle. Taking a long, steadying vent, he removed his optical glass, pulled out the thin cord and cautiously inserted it into the cradle.

Omega couldn’t help the small cry torn from his vocalizer as he felt an unfamiliar rush—the only thing he could compare it to would be his spark bond, long since broken by the death of his mate, but since this process was so finely tapped into the essence of the spark, he probably couldn’t have expected any less. The sudden flash of vision behind his optics, however, caught him completely off guard. He had seen a blurry smear of a smiling face—

Again. It was Scrapper, Omega discovered as the vision sharpened. The prickly déjà vu sensation of seeing his friend-turned-enemy smiling at him should have been disgusting. Instead, he felt a spurt of pride that somehow didn’t belong to him. The emotion was Hauler’s, Omega discovered as he felt a long-ago hand on his (Hauler’s) shoulder. Scrapper was saying something, but Omega couldn’t quite make it out before the image was wiped away, replaced by the dark sky above Cybertron.

He was on his back, in pain, trying to get up but unable. When an unattached hand spun through the air above, he shuddered, but another hand reached out to him and he took it, mumbling some type of gratitude. Bonecrusher was there, looping an arm around his shoulders and speaking in harsh tones. All Omega heard was an indeterminable name and then “never strike a Constructicon again” before Hook took his place, handing him a stack of schematics.

The audio was finally clearing up. “ _This will be one of the greatest projects we’ve ever conceived!_ ” Hauler’s voiceover was excited and he hugged the data pads against his chest.

“Of course it will,” Hook agreed, his voice still haughty as Omega remembered but surprisingly youthful. “It will be made entirely of crystal—those who have heard of the idea are already calling it the sparkling gem of Cybertron!”

Uncertainty, mixed with caution, from Hauler. “ _There will probably be some who will try to take the crystal from us._ ”

“So we’ll need a guardian,” Hook mused, his expression frustrated.

“ _I’ll speak to the guardsmechs,_ ” Hauler promised, his unspoken worry shoved aside under forced hopefulness. “ _And if they don’t have a guardian to spare, we could always build one!_ ”

“If we were a better size, we wouldn’t need one,” Scrapper sighed as he approached. Shaking his helm as though to free himself from that thought, he took the top data pad from Hauler’s stack and studied it. Then he looked up and laughed a little. “What are we worrying about? As a united force, we’re as safe as can be.”

Omega could never have expected the swell of tenderness and adoration that came from Hauler at that. He didn’t have time to cope with that powerful blow before another struck him. It was anguish, numb with shock around the edges, and the ache of a still-healing injury.

“ _My brothers—my team…betrayed me_ ,” Hauler declared in strangled tones, staring at a blank sheet metal floor. “ _Even with my will, I could never choose to be a Decepticon and face that—face them not being the brothers I knew. I don’t know where else to go but to you._ ”

“I can’t say I understand, Hauler, and for that I’m sorry, but I believe it was right of you to come here,” a familiar voice answered softly. “If you join the Autobots, not only will you be trained to fight, but you could provide valuable insight into the sparks and processors of your old team. My medical officer, Ratchet, along with scientists Wheeljack and Perceptor, may still find a way to reverse the reprogramming process.”

Hauler’s optics flickered upward and Omega immediately relaxed at the sight of Prime. He felt Hauler relax too, but then the image suddenly guttered and then faded to gray. The excess energon had dried up from the spark, cutting off the link.

Omega glanced up dazedly at Ratchet and Ironhide, who were calling his name in urgent tones. “Hauler sent us a distress call! What happened t’him?” Ironhide demanded, but Ratchet stopped short, his mouth falling open in disbelief.

“A spark-swamping,” he gasped, his hand covering his own spark as though he feared it contagious. “I’ve never seen one before, but…”

“But your Sire told you how he went about savin’ your life,” Ironhide recalled, watching in awe as Omega Supreme disconnected himself from Hauler and reassembled his optic. Ratchet nodded dumbly, seemingly without words about his sparklinghood experience.

Omega tried to smile at Tonnage and Arial’s spawn, but he found himself unable to. The guilt he felt about wounding Hauler so critically—all for a _false_ assumption!—was almost as overwhelming as their temporary spark bond.

“Request: medical care,” he said, gesturing to Hauler’s crushed plating. A weak hand latched onto one of his fingers and he nearly startled.

“You saw,” Hauler murmured groggily. “You know…”

“Affirmative,” Omega sighed. After a long moment he forced himself to meet Hauler’s gaze, unsure of what he could expect there.

Much to his shock, Hauler smiled a little and released his grip to wave his hand through the air deliriously. “The eye…is a window to the soul…”

Ironhide moved in, swiftly going about the task of loading Hauler into Ratchet’s ambulance mode, and when they left, Omega Supreme wondered what he would do with his newfound knowledge about what that human quote meant.

**Author's Note:**

> Poor little Ratchet, nearly drowning when he was a little sparkling. :( At least Tonnage and Arial saved him!! :D
> 
> I hope you enjoyed! Do comment and tell me if you liked it!


End file.
